Generally, fighting games such as kick boxing, Karate, Kungfu, Judo, Taekwondo and the like typically comprise hand skills and foot skills. Especially the foot skills are advantageous in attacking opponents and more intimidating attacks can be made by use of the foot skills. For this reason, the foot skills have advanced much more than the hand skills. Developing foot skills requires a large amount of trainings.
In playing fighting games including Taekwondo, players wear uniforms and protective equipment to protect their bodies, but they do not wear socks on their feet. That is, players generally train and play games barefoot. If they wear socks, they are highly likely to slip. When they wear shoes, attacks may injure their opponents. But, most of all, they cannot precisely assume desirable postures when they wear socks or shoes, and thus, it is general for the players to train and play games in their bare feet. However, frequent wounds are caused when they play barefoot.
For example, the foot kicking skills in Taekwondo are classified into forward kicking, side kicking, and backward kicking. Especially, among side kicking skills, forward turning kicking skill whereby a side of the opponent is hit by use of the top of the foot is one of the attack skills used most frequently in actual games. At this time, the opponent has to defend against the forward turning kicks by using his/her arm to block the kick. In this event, the top of the foot of the player having attacked with the forward turning kick is frequently damaged or hurt with swelling, contusion and so on because it heavily collides with the opponent's elbow. In addition, forward kicking aims to hit the full face of the opponent, and forward turning kicking aims to attack the side of the opponent by use of the anterior area or the top area of the player's foot. In this event, such injuries as spraining of toes are frequently generated because of collision with the opponent's hands or feet. Further, this kind of injury most often occurs immediately before important games for which the players have spent a large amount of time training. Thus, the players would not demonstrate their skills fully in actual games or in the worst case they would give up the games.
There have been developed various protection devices to protect a player's arms and legs. However, a foot protection device for protecting the player's feet has not been satisfactorily developed yet. Therefore, Taekwondo footwear manufactured to be lighter in weight than general footwear has been used as the foot protection device. The Taekwondo footwear is shown in FIG. 1.
As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional foot protection device, that is, the Taekwondo footwear 1 includes an exterior upper 2 to cover a foot, an outsole 3 which is made of a rubber material and attached to a bottom of the exterior upper 2, and a cover 4 provided on an instep portion of the exterior upper 2.
However, the Taekwondo footwear 1 has a problem in that it cannot sufficiently protect the top area of the foot against the effect of a large blow delivered by an opponent. In order to solve the problem, Korean U.M. Registration No. 20-0199704 proposed an instep protection device 5 attached to the Taekwondo footwear 1 to be used along therewith. Referring to FIG. 2, the instep protection device 5 includes a cushioning body 6 attached to the Taekwondo footwear 1 to protect an instep of a wearer. A wide band 7 is provided at a predetermined position of the cushioning body 6 to surround the wearer's ankle while coupling the cushioning body 6 to the ankle. The instep protection device 5 also includes a long band 8 to couple the cushioning body 6 to the Taekwondo footwear 1.
The conventional Taekwondo footwear 1 (see, FIG. 1) and the instep protection device 5 (see, FIG. 2) attached to the Taekwondo footwear 1 to be used therewith can protect a wearer's foot. However, the conventional Taekwondo footwear 1 and the instep protection device 5 have a problem in that an opponent may be injured due to the weight and thickness of the Taekwondo footwear and the instep protection device, as shown in the drawings. Further, the wearer cannot freely move his/her foot, especially the toes, so that it is difficult for the wearer to display a high level of power and quickness, and assume desirable and exact foot postures.